


Exorcism/Execution

by Odile (Odileheroin_e)



Category: Othello - Shakespeare
Genre: M/M, Slash Undertones, mainly rated for the violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-15
Updated: 2013-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-29 12:20:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1005375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Odileheroin_e/pseuds/Odile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The devil will speak no more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exorcism/Execution

**Author's Note:**

> Since we never really learn what exactly did they do to Iago after the conclusion of the play, I thought up a potential punishment. (Hint: if you just despised Iago when reading/seeing the play, this might be a fic for you. If you can take the gore.)

Understandable.

Makes perfect sense.

To punish the “devil” with the very act he had been so keen on promoting to the Moor; a filthy, unholy union of bodies. The salty smell of obscenity wafts thick in the dark room, Iago’s very bones ache as he lies on the cold stone floor.  His blood colours his pale skin, red from the outside, black and blue from the inside.  The violence was unavoidable, such brutality is always related to acts like this. It hurts, of course it does, but Iago doesn’t pay any particular attention to that. Just breathing will do for now. Trying to survive the heat. Staring idly at the ceiling. Trying to get over the hollow feeling that it is not over. (That is what his sense is telling him, but the pain clouds up his usually so sharp rationality and he slips into comforting denial.)

He is not scared. Was not in the first place. Or in any place, anywhere. For now, he has survived. He is fine, still breathing. _B-R-E-A-T-H-I-N-G._ Like the sweat-covered monster that crouches above him. (And they call _him,_ Iago, a “monster”. An insult that should never under normal circumstances go unpunished.)

He never resisted, not much, anyway. He did not like it, not particularly, and from the moment they came into the room he knew that this was going to happen, whether he wanted or not, however fiercely he resisted (or not). And what they were doing was not _wrong,_ he understood that. He did not repent, oh no, and never will. But he could confess it, what he did was wrong. And it is perfectly logical that a punishment should follow an evil deed. Bodily humiliation and abuse was not the worst that anyone could sentence him to. The body is merely a shell for something more magnificent and complex, and that something that is the soul or the consciousness of a human (what you will) they could never uncover and abuse the way they exposed and used his body. No-one would _ever_ be able to delve deep enough into him to be able to rape his mind, no-one would _ever_ be able to know the heart that would _never_ be poured into someone else’s hand.

So, he was fairly docile. Maybe something inside him had died with the Moor.

The indistinct, indifferent mumble in the background of Iago’s dull suffering surges to a quiet laughter. His attention wavers slightly from the ceiling to the candles the men hold on the other side of the small room. The soft light flickers with the flames of the candles and catches a gleam of something small and silvery. It is too small to be a knife or any kind of a weapon -- Iago tilts his head to the direction of the light and the glimmer.

But the naked monster above him slams its paw on Iago’s throat again and cuts up the sweet air that he had been drinking up like the night had taught him to (since the claws of the monster had already pressed clear imprints on Iago’s neck and made _air_ something not to be taken for granted). Iago gags but won’t beg, he hasn’t begged all night. He has kept his promise and stayed silent ever since he pronounced the words of his vow. Panic won’t come, either, nothing inside him moves. None of his limbs move, only a reflex snaps through his fingers to produce a twitch.

The men with the candles move over to the two of them. Iago won’t look up, but the silver glitter catches the fickle light again and makes itself known to him.

It is a needle.

A thick needle and tailor’s scissors.

Iago coughs and gacks violently and his fingers desperately search for something to grasp. Another man grabs his wrists and presses them firmly against the ground, a third takes him by the cheeks and forces him to look up. ( _“Anything but this, anything but this”,_ Iago thinks but dares not say; it would not avail.) The third man clenches Iago’s face between his thighs to free his hands. The scissors are handed to him. Iago is beaten to the ground, defeated and turning blue from air deprivation. He makes retching noises in a futile attempt of making his mind known to them and stopping it from happening, _anything but this, anything, anything, not my tongue!_

A blow to his stomach forces him to open his mouth, and the next thing he knows is the clash of cold metal against his teeth. The harsh moans that gurgle against the blades turn into uncontrolled screams of pure agony and horror, nothing more but gusts of air leaving Iago’s lungs. Blood bubbles out his mouth and he spatters it all over the party when he coughs it out before choking to it. The hands on his throat and the legs on his temples have let go, and for a while he fumbles about himself as if he had gone blind and stuffs two fingers into his mouth to feel for his tongue, but all he finds is a fountain of blood. He groans and wails mindlessly for a little while before something soft and large muffles his screaming and he cannot breathe. The hands are back on his throat and he cannot move his head. His wild eyes stare up to the man who is stuffing a lump of gauze into his mouth. The little, silvery needle is handed to the man and thick thread is threaded through the needle’s eye.

For a tiny beat of a second the needle scratches Iago’s bottom lip before plunging through the skin and drawing the thread with it. He moans and screams like a madman, but he knows that biting or any such violent resistance will just make the work sloppy and cause him more pain. For what is he to do without his _tongue?_ So, he screams out his terror and lamentation for his most prized possession, for even though he had vowed not to speak, it had been _there,_ the serpent was still ready to strike, and now they had cut off its head. What is there left for him to do? No, the headless snake can only die.

The jabs of the needle won’t grow dull, they sting just as strong as the first one. And yet, despite his shrieks and fear, he has not shed a single tear. And he won’t, though the pain clouds up his vision. When the tailor ties the final knot, the tempting devil is silenced.

 

* * *

 

 _He sounds like a demon,_ he thinks. He really does sound like an evil spirit or a lunatic. Cassio could not believe them when they told him that he was out of his mind and satanic, perhaps possessed, but now it begun to seem disturbingly real. The deranged shrieking and inhuman racket that comes out of the poor devil makes Cassio feel sincere sorrow for Iago, the murderer, the serpent in the Paradise of a newlywed couple. The Heaven he brought roaring down deserves to be avenged, but Cassio would rather have just sentenced him to death; a quick, clean death. Preferably by his own sword, even though murderers are rarely given the privilege of a sharp sword and a well-trained soldier for an executioner. And yet he is present in the sentencing of this severe, cruel punishment, a gruesomely slow death and unbearable mental torture.

Why did it have to happen this way? Does this make us any better than him? Do we have the _right_   to do this? It cannot be.

The thread is cut after the last knot is tied and the bleeding figure is left languishing on the cold stones. The executioners leave the room, and only Michael Cassio and Iago the ensign remain.

Neither moves. Cassio stands where he has stood through all of the vicious act of “justice”, Iago lies dead silent and bleeding. Only his rising and falling chest, steadily dripping wounds and trembling figure remind them both that he is still alive. Iago’s terror-struck eyes are still wide open, staring at nothing, towards eternity in the darkness of the ceiling.

The room is dark, the only candle is beside Cassio. After a long while Cassio realises that Iago has passed out, so he takes the candle and moves, like a machine, towards him. He kneels beside the wreck of a human body that is Iago and moves the candle closer to Iago’s face. His lips are stained bright red by the blood that had come out from both his lips and temples; he has cuts all over his face. Cassio feels like he is giving a farewell to a corpse in a funeral. He smooths back Iago’s messy hair and wishes he could call the surgeons to patch him up. Poor, disturbed wretch. A single look down to Iago’s feet is enough. He gets up to leave, but stops before taking a single step. Gravely, he feels for his crucifix under his shirt, takes it off and lays is to Iago’s open palm. 

He turns and walks away. In the hallway, he cannot forget the blood between Iago’s buttocks, the finger-shaped bruises on his hips, the way his bones stuck out in dark colours underneath his white skin and the darkness of the little room he is confined in. He can’t forget screams, the restrained twitches of protest and how he lay idle after his body’s shaming. He tries to swallow down his pity and marvels at how the demon could win him even after his silencing.


End file.
